OMG what is pope francis displaying by praying at a mosque???

Pope Francis is wrapping up his three-day visit to Turkey with a liturgy alongside the spiritual leader of the world’s Orthodox Christians and a meeting with young refugees who have fled Syria, Iraq and other conflict zones.

Francis and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I will issue a joint declaration at the end of their meeting on Sunday, which falls on an important feast day for the Orthodox Church.

The Catholic and Orthodox churches split in 1054 over differences on the primacy of the papacy, and there was a time when patriarchs had to kiss popes’ feet.

At the end of a joint prayer service on Saturday, the second day of his visit, Francis bowed to Bartholomew and asked for his blessing, a remarkable display of papal deference to an Orthodox patriarch that underscored Francis’ hope to end the schism.

Also on Saturday, Francis took part in a Muslim prayer alongside the grand mufti of Istanbul.

Francis stood with his head bowed and hands clasped in front of him in a two minutes of silent prayer inside the 17th-century Sultan Ahmet Mosque, aiming to show respect for Islam and encourage stronger ties between the two faiths.

“May God accept it,” Rahmi Yaran, the grand mufti of Istanbul, told Francis at the end of the prayer.

Earlier Yaran gave Francis a tour of the mosque, which is famed for its elaborate blue tiles and cascading domes and better known as the Blue Mosque.

Francis then visited the nearby Haghia Sofia, which was the main Byzantine church in Constantinople – present-day Istanbul – before being turned into a mosque following the Muslim conquest of the city in 1453.

The Haghia Sophia is now museum, although some Islamic groups want it to be converted back into a mosque.

A few dozen well-wishers outside Haghia Sophia waved a combination of the Turkish and the flag of the Holy See.

In meetings with Turkish leaders in the capital Ankara on Friday, Francis urged Muslim leaders to condemn the “barbaric violence” being committed in Islam’s name against religious minorities in Iraq and Syria.

He reaffirmed that military force was justified to halt the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group’s advance, and called for greater dialogue among Christians, Muslims and people of all faiths to end fundamentalism.

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David Beckham and Son Brooklyn, 15, Involved in Car Accident

Retired soccer star and model David Beckham and his and Victoria Beckham's his eldest son, Brooklyn Beckham, were recently involved in a car crash in their native England and thankfully, were not injured.

The accident took place on Saturday.

"David and Brooklyn were involved in a car accident, they did not suffer any injuries and as I understand it, both passengers in the other vehicle were unharmed," a source told E! News. "David and Brooklyn were shaken by the accident but thankfully OK."

The accident occurred outside the training ground of soccer team Arsenal, where Brooklyn, 15, had played in a match with the group's youth team, the U.K. newspaper The Telegraph reported. The outlet said David, 39, was driving an Audi and had picked up his son when the crash occurred, adding that the two were spared serious injury due to the deployment of the car's airbags.

David has been in previous auto accidents, including two with Brooklyn. No injuries have been reported.

In 2011, the two were involved a car crash on the 405 freeway in Los Angeles, one of the busiest highways in the United States.

In 2013, David and Brooklyn got into a car wreck in front of their family's home in Beverly Hills, which the Beckhams bought in 2007 after the soccer stud signed with the Los Angeles Galaxy team. He left in 2012 and the family eventually moved back to England and has kept their lavish California house.

This past August, David crashed his motorcyle on Los Angeles' Sunset Strip, located not far from the family's home.

David and wife Victoria, 40, are also parents to sons Romeo Beckham, 12, and Cruz Beckham, 9 and daughter Harper Beckham, 3.

--Reporting by Marc Malkin

(Pictured below: David, Brooklyn, Cruz and Romeo appear at the 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil Final match between Germany and Argentina in Brazil on July 13.)

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US police officer who shot teenager resigns

Darren Wilson insists he acted in accordance with the law
US police officer Darren Wilson - who fatally shot unarmed black teenager Michael Brown in the Missouri town of Ferguson - has resigned from the force, his lawyer Neil Bruntrager says.
Mr Bruntrager told US media the resignation was effective immediately.
Mr Wilson himself has been quoted by as saying he had taken the step because of threats of violence if he stayed.
Ferguson and other US towns and cities saw rioting after a jury decided Mr Wilson should not be charged.
BBC Washington correspondent Tom Esslemont says that to many in Ferguson, it was only a matter of time before Mr Wilson resigned.
The 9 August shooting in the St Louis suburb and last week's state grand jury decision triggered a nationwide debate over relations between black communities and law enforcement.
'Resignation letter'
The St Louis Post-Dispatch newspaper said the 28-year-old Mr Wilson had decided to step down after his police department received threats that violence would follow if he stayed on as an employee.

An undated family snapshot of Michael Brown

Demonstrators flooded on to the streets of Ferguson after the grand jury verdict, with several buildings set alight

It was the latest bout of rioting since the August shooting
The newspaper published what it said was his resignation letter, which read: "I have been told that my continued employment may put the residents and police officers of the City of Ferguson at risk, which is a circumstance that I cannot allow.
"For obvious reasons, I wanted to wait until the grand jury made their decision before I officially made my decision to resign.
"It was my hope to continue in police work, but the safety of other police officers and the community are of paramount importance to me. It is my hope that my resignation will allow the community to heal."
In a subsequent telephone interview on Saturday evening, the paper quoted Mr Wilson as saying: "I'm resigning of my own free will. I'm not willing to let someone else get hurt because of me."
He added that resigning was "the hardest thing I've ever had to do".
Family 'crushed'
Earlier this week, Mr Wilson told US media that before the shooting, Mr Brown had pushed him back into his car, hit him and grabbed at his drawn gun, and said that he felt "like a five-year-old holding on to [US wrestler] Hulk Hogan".
The policeman said he had feared for his life.
Mr Brown's supporters said he was attempting to surrender to the policeman when he was shot. Some witnesses said the teenager, who was unarmed, had his hands up.
However, the state prosecutor said physical evidence had contradicted some of the witness statements.
The family of Mr Brown, who was 18, have said they felt "crushed" by the decision.
Their son was killed after being shot six or seven times.
Many in the African-American community had called for Mr Wilson to be charged with murder, but after three months of deliberation a Missouri grand jury - of nine white and three black members - made no recommendation of charges.
The decision means Mr Wilson will not face state criminal charges over the shooting.
Protests - some but not all of them violent - followed in a number of US cities, including New York, Washington and Los Angeles.
More than 100 people were arrested during the demonstrations.
The US justice department has also launched a federal investigation into whether Mr Wilson violated Mr Brown's civil rights.

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11 feared killed in Rivers gun attack

By Jimitota Onoyume
About eleven persons were feared dead in Omoku, headquarters of Ogba Egbema Ndoni local government area of Rivers State, following a shooting spree by gunmen who stormed the area Friday night and yesterday afternoon.
Community sources told Sunday Vanguard that the gunmen, who  wore masks, shot indiscriminately for several hours on Friday night, adding that they later fled when men of the Joint Task Force, JTF, engaged them in a  shootout. The gun were said to have regrouped, yesterday afternoon, to continue the shooting at the market.
Sources feared  the shooting may not be unconnected with plans by some politicians to hijack the collection of Permanent Voter Cards  which commenced in the area on Friday.

File: Port Harcourt  during a recent crisis.
Among those killed, sources said, was  a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) who was simply identified as Godspower.
The Chairman of the local government area, Mr Austin Ayamadu, who condemned the incident, appealed to residents to remain calm, assuring that security men had taken charge of the area. Ayamadu said the gunmen went from one street to the other shooting before security men swung into action.
The Chairman, who could not confirm the death toll, said some persons died in the incident.
“Unknown gunmen invaded Omoku and started by killing an elder of the APC and  some  other people were also killed. The figure I  cannot immediately say because of the security situation, but it is more than five”, he said.
Rivers State  Police Public Relations Officer, DSP Ahmad Muhammad, who confirmed the  development, said it was a clash between rival cult groups, stressing that security men were on top of the situation.

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U.N.: Number of Ebola cases now tops 16,000

The number of confirmed, probable and suspected cases of Ebola in the current outbreak has surpassed 16,000, according to the World Health Organization, with nearly 7,000 deaths from those cases.
The United Nations' health agency issued its latest numbers Friday, focusing on how Ebola has affected Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone -- the three countries where the vast majority of cases have occurred.
Liberia has been hit hardest, with the WHO reporting 7,244 confirmed and potential cases as well as 4,181 deaths.
Both numbers reported Friday are significantly higher than those released earlier in the week. The WHO and other health agencies have long said the scale of the Ebola outbreak is likely significantly worse than even the current high numbers indicate, because many people died before they could be diagnosed and many contracted the disease in remote areas without ready access to health care.
The U.N. health agency recently noted that the situation in Liberia has stabilized in the past five weeks, after the rate of new cases declined from mid-September through mid-October.
The one country where WHO has reported a significant uptick -- with 385 new confirmed cases during the week of November 23 and 533 in the previous week -- is Sierra Leone.
Ebola and similar contagious diseases are not new to Africa, but the latest outbreak has been particularly virulent and deadly. About 60% of those infected have died from the virus, according to WHO.
The rapid infection rate fanned concerns that, due to the relative ease of international travel, Ebola might spread outside the continent. In fact, there have been new cases of Ebola in the United States and Spain, though such incidences remain a tiny fraction of the overall outbreak.
The United Nations has urged countries worldwide to pitch in, asking in September for nearly $1 billion to help Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone in their efforts to control the deadly disease.
While experimental drugs and treatments have been used to treat Ebola, there's no known vaccine that can prevent the disease...

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